Belgian GP, 1986

In the fortnight between Monaco and Belgium, there was a test at Paul Ricard and a rear wing failure on his Brabham caused Elio de Angelis to crash. The car cartwheeled over the barriers and landed upside down. The ill-equipped marshals were unable to turn it over and a fire broke out. This was put out and de Angelis was released and, after a lengthy wait for a helicopter, he was flown to hospital in Marseilles where he died. It was a shameful incident and one which led to the introduction of new safety standards for F1 tests but the sport had again lost one of its leading names. The Brabham team decided to run only Riccardo Patrese for the Belgian race. The field was otherwise unchanged.

Piquet made a good start to take the lead to go into the lead while Berger was slow away and found was between Senna and Prost at the hairpin. Prost and Berger collided and there was chaos behind them. When the dust settled Tambay was out with a broken suspension but everyone else was still going, albeit with some damage. This meant that Piquet was clear of Senna with Mansell third, Stefan Johansson (Ferrari) fourth, Johnny Dumfries (Lotus) fifth and Jacques Laffite (Ligier) sixth. Mansell quickly overhauled Senna but on lap five he spun and was overtaken by Senna and Johansson. Dumfries spun off and so Alboreto moved to fifth having passed the Ligiers, Arnoux having overtaken Laffite. Rene's race would end soon afterwards with a blown engine. Soon afterwards Piquet disappeared with another BMW engine failure and so Senna went into the lead with Mansell closing in. The pit stops resulted in Mansell getting ahead of Senna with Alboreto third and Johansson fourth. Senna closed in on Mansell but after a battle Mansell pulled away to win. Senna was second while the two Ferraris battled for third, Johansson eventually coming out ahead of Alboreto. Laffite was fifth with Prost salvaging one point for sixth place.